Dec 2, 2005 | Uncategorized
No kidding. (See this post if you don't know what I'm talking about.)
From Publishers Weekly
The latest in Dedalus's Euro Shorts series is a surreal anti-fairy tale featuring a bizarre trio of star-crossed lovers. Plucked rudely from the sea, Lobster finds himself in a tank in the Titanic's dining room, watching in horror as Angelina, a beautiful young opium addict, devours his father. Lobster himself is dropped into boiling water three days later, but is saved when the Titanic hits the iceberg and, red but alive, he's sent careening through the flooding ship. He finds Angelina trapped in the death grip of her male companion, frees her with his pincers, realizes that he feels human lust for her and, in a startling scene, brings her to her first-ever orgasm. […]
(Feb.) Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Some things are just too weird to be believed. I'm not compelled, but in case you are, buy the book and let me know how it works out, ‘kay?
(I know, I know, Leda and the Swan and all that, but it's just too bizarre for me to wrap my noggin around. I keep thinking of Dave Barry: “I personally see no significant difference between a lobster and, say, a giant Madagascar hissing cockroach. . . . I do not eat lobsters, although I once had a close call.”)
Dec 2, 2005 | Uncategorized
It's that time of year again! No, not THAT time.
It's the time when The Guardian (UK) bestows its bad sex award.
Now in its 13th year, the prize, which only targets literary fiction, aims “to draw attention to the crude, tasteless, often perfunctory use of redundant passages of sexual description in the modern novel, and to discourage it.” The winner, who will be announced on December 1 at the In & Out Club in London, is awarded a semi-abstract statue representing sex in the 1950s and a bottle of champagne, if he or she turns up.
The article excerpts the nominees, but you can read the full passages here. I can't choose, they're so bad in their badness. But any passage that features a lobster having sex with a woman (yes, a LOBSTER!) gets my vote. I hope it's not really a lobster, I hope it's a metaphor for something else. Yeesh.
Nov 30, 2005 | Uncategorized
Last week, we were shopping for a book, and noticed that our local Borders had something unusual on the shelves: lots of print versions of books published by electronic publisher Ellora’s Cave. While the fact that print publishers are creating electronic versions of their books isn’t news, it’s interesting that a publisher that started exclusively in the online realm is in the financial position to offer print books. Yeah, the covers are still bad, but these aren’t the kind of books you read for the covers, if you know what we mean.
Courtesy of Booksquare. No, you definitely don't read those for the covers. 😉
Nov 30, 2005 | Uncategorized
Didn't mean to be gone a whole week, but the holidays do that to a body don't they? We had a good Thanksgiving, a long and fun weekend, and I've spent the last two days working hard on the newsletter I edit.
In fact, I've realized I'm going to need to make some hard decisions come January about what I can and cannot do next year. As incoming Aloha Chapter president, I'll have plenty to keep me busy. When I mentioned writing an article on-spec for another publication recently, Mike nearly hit the roof.
“No more giving away your writing for a clip. You've got enough already, and you need to work on selling your novels.”
Um, yeah, he's right. December is bad for getting anything done, so I'll content myself with less. Maybe I'll put together a business plan. I had one, but I never wrote it down so it didn't seem real. This time, I'll write it down and refer to it daily.
Someone asked me recently if I got more writing done because I lived in a warm and sunny place year round. Er, no. In fact, it's kind of like those spring school days where you sat at your desk and gazed out the window at the birds and grass and imagined yourself frolicking. Except there's no teacher keeping me in that classroom now. 😉
Nov 24, 2005 | Uncategorized
You know you live on an island when, with a fast approaching holiday dedicated to eating, you have to drive to four different stores just to find the fresh herbs and whipping cream that your recipes call for. Does no one around here use fresh ingredients until Thanksgiving? Why the run on whipping cream and thyme? (Sage I can understand.) Mounds of basil are still available. Piles of oregano beckon. Parsley, sage, rosemary, and thyme are off to Scarborough Fair or something. I'll be glad when normal returns next week.
For holiday gift ideas, the New York Times has just updated their 100 Notable Books of the Year. Here's a taste:
Fiction & Poetry
BEYOND BLACK. By Hilary Mantel. (John Macrae/Holt, $26.) Neurotic, demanding ghosts haunt a British clairvoyant in this darkly comic novel.
A CHANGED MAN. By Francine Prose. (HarperCollins, $24.95.) A neo-Nazi engages a Jewish human rights leader in this morally concerned novel, asking for help in his effort to repent.
COLLECTED POEMS, 1943-2004. By Richard Wilbur. (Harcourt, $35.) This urbane poetry survived the age of Ginsberg, Lowell and Plath.
EMPIRE RISING. By Thomas Kelly. (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $25.) A muscular historical novel in which the Irish erect the Empire State Building in a cheerfully corrupt New York.
ENVY.
By Kathryn Harrison. (Random House, $24.95.) A psychoanalyst is unhappy but distant until Greek-tragedy things start happening in this novel by an ace student of sexual violation.
EUROPE CENTRAL. By William T. Vollmann. (Viking, $39.95.) A novel, mostly in stories, of Middle European fanaticism and resistance to it in the World War II period.
FOLLIES: New Stories. By Ann Beattie. (Scribner, $25.) This keen observer of the surface of life now slows down for an occasional epiphany.
